Joseph Lieberman for President 2004
Joseph Lieberman. A new kind of Democrat. The Republican kind.

Bush to Pledge $500 Million for Global AIDS Fight Zeitz and other critics have accused the Bush administration of undermining legislation in Congress that would provide far more funding for the fight against AIDS.
A leading proposal by Republican Bill Frist of Tennessee, one of Bush's closest Senate allies, called for increasing U.S. spending to combat AIDS around the world from $1 billion to more than $2 billion annually over the next two years.

Today, the economy is limping along. Some say it's a recovery, but for far too Americans, there's no recovery in our states and cities.

There's no recovery in our rural communities. There's no recovery for working Americans and for those searching for jobs to feed and clothe their families.

After gaining 22 million jobs in eight years, we've now lost 2 million jobs in the last two years since President Bush took office; 100,000 jobs lost last month alone.

Islam Online- News Section “As far as I’m concerned he declared war on Iraq tonight,” said Jeffords, who stands politically with opposition Democrats. “He left himself no out other than going to war.”

“It sounds like he’s not listening to anyone. He wants war. He just wants a war.”

Hi everyone,

This is William from Meetup. I wanted to thank everyone for signing up for Dean in 2004 Meetups. Today is a very exciting day for Meetup, and I wanted to share the news with all of you. Governor Dean has decided to endorse Meetup and use us as part of his campaign.

Hope you can all make it on the 5th!

Here's Governor Dean's message to all of you:
'I want to thank Meetup.com for creating a platform for people to organize around the issues we all care about.

I hope to attend Meetups of my supporters as I travel the nation, and my campaign will provide suggested issues that need to be discussed, as well as ask for organizational help to build our campaign at future Meetups.

One issue that I think is appropriate for the February 5th Meetup is the pending war with Iraq. I hope that those who attend will look at positions of all the Democratic candidates for President on the war, and square it with the vote they cast on the Iraqi Resolution that gave President Bush a blank check to prosecute the war when he decides to do so. I opposed the Iraqi Resolution and believe the President must make his case to the American people before sending our armed forces in harms way.

Please visit my website at www.deanforamerica.com and I hope to see you at a future Meetup!

Thank You
Howard Dean'

Thanks again,

William

Team Blog

Mokhiber: You and the President have repeatedly said one of the reasons Saddam is part of the axis of evil is because he's gassed his own people. Well, he gassed his own people with our help. You saw the Washington Post article, didn't you, by Michael Dobbs?

Ari Fleischer: I think that statement is not borne out by the facts.

Mokhiber: Did you see the Post article by Dobbs?

Ari Fleischer: I think that he gassed his own people as a result of his decisions to use his weapons to gas his own people.

Mokhiber: But who gave him the weapons?

Ari Fleischer: And I think the suggestion that you blame America for Iraq's actions is way beyond the pale.

Mokhiber: Who gave him the weapons?

posted by Matthew Carroll-Schmidt at 10:35 AM
(0) comments

Bono!

(Washington, D.C.) The federal government's 9-11 Compensation Fund has approved what is said to be the first payment to a person in a gay relationship whose partner was killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

If you were near a tv tonight, there is a good special on about the racial killing in Jasper. The black man that was dragged 3 miles by 3 bubbas in a pickup in 1998. Channel 9 at 9. We saw it last night. Blacks were filmed by an all black crew and whites by whites. The crews pretended not to know each other while in town.

Wealth of Opinions (washingtonpost.com) He doesn't look particularly fearsome, a bearded professor in a pullover sweater and thick-soled shoes. He spends part of his time preparing to teach Economics 101. He also writes a New York Times column in which he repeatedly, loudly and unambiguously calls the president of the United States a liar.

Salon.com News | Worst-case scenarios Salon asked six writers to look at worst-case scenarios on the domestic and international scenes. What if deficits mount and the war with Iraq is messier than expected? What if joblessness continues to rise but states' unemployment insurance funds collapse? What if al-Qaida rebuilds while the Palestinian situation festers?

The New Yorker: Fact "There is an awful lot of Al Qaeda sympathy within Pakistan's nuclear program," an intelligence official told me. One American nonproliferation expert said, "Right now, the most dangerous country in the world is Pakistan. If we're incinerated next week, it'll be because of H.E.U."—highly enriched uranium—"that was given to Al Qaeda by Pakistan."

A Touch of Class So the latest round of Bush tax cuts, like the previous round, mainly provides benefits to the very, very well off - and once again the administration is shamelessly misrepresenting the content of its own policies. But aside from the honor and integrity thing, should we care?

New York -- George W. Bush has quietly reinstated a tradition, that his father halted in 1990, of paying homage to the greatest hero of the Confederacy -- Jefferson Davis, TIME's Karen Tumulty and Michael Weisskopf report.

Last Memorial Day, for the second year in a row, Bush's White House sent a floral wreath to the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. It?s not clear why, after more than a decade's lapse, the current Bush White House resumed this symbolic tribute to the Old South. But one of the organizations connected to the ceremony is the Sons of Confederate Veterans, whose "Chief Aide-de-Camp" is Richard T. Hines, an influential figure in South Carolina politics. In that state's brutal 2000 Republican primary, Hines reportedly helped finance tens of thousands of letters blasting Bush rival John McCain for failing to support the flying of the Confederate flag over the state capitol. Despite repeated requests by TIME, Hines declined to comment, TIME reports. George W. Bush issued a stern rebuke to Senator Trent Lott in December for his praise of the segregationist 1948 presidential bid of Strom Thurmond. Bush has revived the tradition, dating back to Woodrow Wilson, that his father had halted in 1990. The elder Bush was weary of infighting among various Confederacy groups, so his White House declined to participate altogether. "No one saw a wreath from 1990 until George W. Bush got elected," said John Edward Hurley, head of the Confederate Memorial Association in Washington. His account is echoed by numerous participants in the annual event, TIME reports.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday that he disagrees with President Bush's position on an affirmative action case before the Supreme Court, as the White House called for more money for historically black colleges.

Connect the Dots, Folks: Bush Tax Cuts for Rich - I just love the fine print in the president's tax-cut plan. I grant you, the overall effect is pretty spectacular, too — a plan that has almost no stimulative effect but still opens a future of zillion-dollar deficits to drag down the economy. That's the back-asswards of what we need, but it's not the fun part.

What's a poor despot to do? The Bush administration had virtually put his face on a wanted poster and distributed it to every post office in the world. First, Hussein, then Kim. The tough talk -- so refreshingly honest, we were told -- somehow had unforeseen (or, as some warned, foreseen) consequences. If there was a policy here, it was simply to do the opposite of what Bill Clinton had done.

Now Bush is going down the same path Clinton did -- only on crutches. He has no choice. War with North Korea is unthinkable. It would devastate South Korea, whose capital, Seoul, is only 30 miles from the border -- within range of more than 8,400 North Korean howitzers and 2,400 rocket launchers. Even without nuclear weapons, the North could devastate the South.

When Bill Clinton became president in 1993, he raised taxes, the economy boomed and the deficit shrank steadily. From 1998 through 2001 the government ran a surplus.

Sounds like things got a little lively on the New Zealand set of "Lord of the Rings" there ...

"It was the hobbits versus the humans, seeing who could trash each other's trailer the most," Dominic Monaghan, who plays the hobbit Merry Brandybuck, told TeenHollywood.com.

The trouble started when Orlando Bloom and Sean Bean taped up Monaghan's trailer, barring his entry.

But with a little help from Elijah Wood, Monaghan managed to exact his revenge.

"Me and Elijah made some fake dog poo and covered the stairs to Orlando's trailer with it," Monaghan shared. "We also sprayed all over the inside of his trailer with shaving foam and then squirted hairspray all over the taps so that everything was sticky."

Boys -- even hobbit boys -- will be boys, I suppose.

The larger problem with Woodward is not so much whether he can be trusted in the narrow sense (I'm sure he has notes to back up what he reports). Rather, Woodward's problems lie in the epistemological realm. We read Woodward to understand what goes on in the inner circles of power, and we come away thinking we know. We do not. On the day I am writing this review, The Washington Post contains three disturbing stories about the war on the homepage of its Web site. The headlines read as follows: "Many Jailed in Terror War Held in Limbo Indefinitely," "Plan to Enlist Citizens as Spies Dead" and "Saudi Funds' Link to Hijackers Probed."

All of these stories reflect badly on the Bush administration, and one would never guess that any of them might be taking place by reading Bob Woodward's book. Indeed, John Ashcroft, who cannot, in polite conversation, be molded into the heroic action figure that so many of the Bushies enjoy here, barely makes the index. The Bush administration's assault on civil liberties is left undiscussed, along with its shameless efforts to exploit the 9-11 attacks to further its agenda and expand its political dominance. Nor is there much investigation of the most fundamental question: Just who was asleep at the switch?

New US ad campaign: "We want to point out how our driving habits are fueling oil money to Saudi Arabia -- which funnels some of that wealth to support charities and religious zealots with ties to terrorist activity," co-founder Lawrence Bender said.

The "tax the poor" meme continues to lie low, refusing to come out and fight like a man.

More about that that traitorous pigfucker:

Lieberman says he wants to campaign as "a different kind of Democrat." That he certainly is.

While the majority of Congressional Democrats have expressed clear reservations about the Bush administration's rush to launch a war with Iraq, for instance, Lieberman has been cheerleader-in-chief for the Bush line.

Bring It On - Let's Debate Class In America

Advocates of progressive taxation need to bolster their basic argument -- the wealthy should pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes because they benefit disproportionately from the national security, orderly marketplace, and social stability the nation provides. The president and his apologists, on the other hand, have successfully made the case that since the rich pay most of the taxes, they should get the most tax relief.

You know, Abraham Lincoln was a hell of a guy. He took this state -- and this country -- through the toughest times and the toughest part of our history we've ever known. He was always criticized, the press was always on him. His party was after him all the time. His cabinet was after him. He couldn't do anything right. But he always came up with the right solutions to tough problems. Lincoln once said: "I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice." I can only hope with God's help that will be so.

Why Moore Matters

Michael Moore.com : Donahue Interview May I just review, Michael, here are gun deaths in a year. We hear this all the time, but it just -- Germany, 381, France, 255 -- this is one year. Canada, 165 deaths, United Kingdom, 68, Australia, 65, Japan, 39. The United States of America, 11,127.

(both this and my previous post were picked up via Cursor)

TOMPAINE.com - Bush Or Bush Lite? So, what's not to like about Joe? Well, once you get beyond his style and his Big Money prowess, he looks nearly identical to George W. Bush on most key issues: Iraq, trade, missile defense, homeland security, corporate tax favors and faith-based gestures.

Bush's Secrecy

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And how do you think that the current Bush administration is reading Nixon's book?

JOHN DEAN: It appears to me that the plays they're taking out of Nixon's handbook are not the ones that they should be taking -- the effort to keep homeland security secret; the effort to stiff the Congress; to try various ploys to keep information from becoming public -- those are the pages they should be re-examining and not relying on.

Biography of Donald H. Rumsfeld Mr. Rumsfeld resigned from Congress in 1969 during his fourth term to join the President's Cabinet. From 1969 to 1970, he served as Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity and Assistant to the President. From 1971 to 1972, he was Counsellor to the President and Director of the Economic Stabilization Program. In 1973, he left Washington, DC, to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels, Belgium (1973-1974).

Biography of Vice President Richard B. Cheney Mr. Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on January 30, 1941 and grew up in Casper, Wyoming. He earned his bachelor's and master's of arts degrees from the University of Wyoming. His career in public service began in 1969 when he joined the Nixon Administration, serving in a number of positions at the Cost of Living Council, at the Office of Economic Opportunity, and within the White House.

Karl Rove At age nine, Rove became a faithful Republican when he backed Richard Nixon against John Kennedy.

SUVs are EVIL

Yahoo! News - TV Commercials Link SUVs, Terror Funds The ads were turned down by several TV stations — WABC in New York, KABC and KCBS in Los Angeles and WDIV in Detroit, according to campaign publicists Fenton Communications.
Huffington said the stations found them "controversial." The ads will air on "Face the Nation" and "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

Three-a Reengs fur zee Ilfee-Keengs under zee sky,

   Sefee fur zee Dverff-lurds in zeeur hells ooff stune-a,

Neene-a fur zee Murtel Mee duumed tu deee-a,

   Oone-a fur zee Derk Lurd oon hees derk thrune-a

In zee Lund ooff Murdur vhere-a zee Shedoos leee-a.

   Oone-a Reeng tu roole-a zeem ell, Oone-a Reeng tu feend zeem,

   Oone-a Reeng tu breeng zeem ell und in zee derkness beend zeem

In zee Lund ooff Murdur vhere-a zee Shedoos leee-a.

   Bork Bork Bork!

For Gondor!

Straight Dope Message Board - If LotR Had Been Written By Someone Else!?


Excerpt from the Summa Tolkeinia

(With apologies to Thomas Aquinas)



III C 2 Whether Balrogs have Wings



i. It would seem that Balrogs do have wings. The Professor states " the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings" and ""its wings were spread from wall to wall"



ii Further, a Balrog is, like a Dragon, an evil creature associated with the element of fire, and it is clear to everyone that Dragons do have wings.



I assert that Balrogs do not have wings. For, it is a natural impulse to act to preserve one's life, and in doing so, to make full use of one's capabilities. If the Balrog did have wings, it would not allow itself to fall to its death in the mines of Moria, but save itself by the use of its wings



Reply to Objection i. It is clear from usage that the Professor was using a metaphor here, and not being literally descriptive



Reply to Objection ii. Dragons and Balrogs are alike in that they are both servants of evil and of flame, but they differ in their accidential traits. Because two things are alike in one way, it is not proper to argue they are alike in other ways.

An Irrelevant Proposal Anyway, even to debate the pros and cons of dividend taxation is to play the administration's game, which is to change the subject. Weren't we supposed to be talking about emergency economic stimulus?

The Japan Card (washingtonpost.com) We should go to the Chinese and tell them plainly that if they do not join us in squeezing North Korea and thus stopping its march to go nuclear, we will endorse any Japanese attempt to create a nuclear deterrent of its own. Even better, we would sympathetically regard any request by Japan to acquire American nuclear missiles as an immediate and interim deterrent. If our nightmare is a nuclear North Korea, China's is a nuclear Japan. It's time to share the nightmares.